set in cleveland, ohio, from its earliest beginnings as a forested frontier to the urban blight of modern times, mistakes by the lake is a collection of ten thematically linked stories spanning the many faces of the city's history: a motorman navigates his 1920's back-and-forth trolley until he snaps; a stockyards knocker encounters the virgin mary during the 1954 world series; a wannabe wrestles his unruly mind along the flammable 1960's cuyahoga river; in a reinvention of henry iv, a young man must either stick with his bumbling criminal crew or uncover legit ways to support his mother and transgender gramps. the collection and its stories have garnered numerous accolades: finalist: nilsen prize (southeast missouri state university); winner: the lake prize in fiction (midwestern gothic); shortlisted: the novella award (liverpool john moores university); shortlisted: munster literature centre's se�n � faol�in short story competition; honorable mention: family matters contest (glimmer train). praise for the novella, mistakes by the lake: "full of action, movement, tension and shocks. t he world of the cleveland stockyards and its denizens is brought to life with verve, skill and command" (vulpes libris).